The Creative Decisions That Make Everyone Uncomfortable
"My nephew can do that in Canva."
You've heard it. Maybe from a VP who's never opened a design file. Maybe from a budget-conscious founder who thinks DIY is always the answer. Doesn't matter who says it. It stings the same.
Here's the translation: they don't understand the value of what you're proposing.
They see the surface. They don't see the strategy, the research, the years of experience that went into knowing what will work and what won't. They definitely don't see the business outcomes you're designing for.
The Canva comment is just one version of a bigger problem. Every significant creative decision comes with discomfort. The bolder the direction, the more people squirm. The more strategic the work, the harder it is to defend to someone who's looking for pretty pictures.
I spent nearly a decade in Fortune 500 environments watching good creative die in committee. Not because it was bad. Because it made people uncomfortable. The safe option always won, even when everyone knew it wouldn't move the needle.
That discomfort you feel when presenting bold work? That's the gap between transformative and forgettable. And most companies choose forgettable because it's easier to defend.
When Strategy Looks Like an Expense
The ROI question kills more good creative than bad feedback ever will.
You're sitting in a budget meeting. You need a comprehensive brand refresh. You know it's the right move. You've done the research. You understand your audience has outgrown your current positioning. But someone at the table asks the question you've been dreading: "Why can't we just put that money into Facebook ads?"
It sounds reasonable. Ads are measurable. You can track clicks, conversions, revenue. Brand work feels intangible by comparison. How do you measure better brand perception? How do you quantify the value of standing out in a crowded market?
Here's the truth: ads amplify your brand. If your brand is forgettable, you're just spending money to be forgettable at scale. A strong brand makes every dollar you spend on marketing work harder. It builds recognition, trust, and premium positioning. But try explaining that to someone staring at a spreadsheet.
This is where most creative decisions die. Not because they're wrong, but because they require belief in something you can't A/B test your way into. You're asking for investment in positioning that will pay off over months or years, not the instant gratification of traffic metrics.
The discomfort comes from defending the intangible. From knowing you're right but struggling to prove it in a way that satisfies people who only trust numbers.
I've been in rooms where I had to build the business case for creative work that should have been obvious. Where I had to quantify the cost of looking cheap, sounding generic, or blending in. It's exhausting. But it's also necessary, because the alternative is watching your brand get outpaced by competitors who were willing to invest in standing out.
Using Your Voice When It Feels Too Personal
Your brand voice lives in a document no one reads.
You spent weeks developing it. Maybe you hired someone to help. You've got guidelines, examples, tone descriptions. It's clear, it's distinctive, it's strategic. And then you go to actually use it, and it feels wrong.
Too casual. Too opinionated. Too much like a real person and not enough like a professional company. So you soften it. You add some corporate polish. You strip out anything that might alienate someone. And suddenly you sound like everyone else.
The uncomfortable truth about brand voice: if it doesn't make you a little nervous to use it, it's probably not distinctive enough to matter.
Real brand voice has edges. It takes positions. It sounds like a specific person with specific opinions, not a committee trying to offend no one. That's what makes it memorable. That's also what makes it scary to actually deploy.
I see this most often on LinkedIn. Marketing directors who know they should be posting but can't bring themselves to sound like themselves. Every draft gets sanitized until it's just another bland thought leadership post that could have been written by anyone in their industry.
What's the actual risk? Someone might disagree with you. Someone might not like your tone. You might lose a prospect who wasn't the right fit anyway. Meanwhile, playing it safe guarantees you blend into the noise.
Your voice is an asset when you use it. Sitting in a brand guidelines document, it's worthless.
The Safe Option Everyone Agrees On
Consensus is the enemy of distinctive.
You present three directions. One is bold, strategic, exactly what the brand needs. One is safe, expected, what the brand has always done. One is somewhere in the middle.
Guess which one the committee picks. Every time.
The safe option gets unanimous approval because it doesn't make anyone uncomfortable. It doesn't require anyone to defend it. It doesn't ask anyone to take a risk. It's the creative equivalent of beige walls and generic stock photos.
Here's what no one says out loud in those meetings: the safe option is a vote for irrelevance.
When every competitor looks and sounds the same, blending in isn't safe. It's expensive. You're spending money on creative work that won't move the needle because it won't make anyone notice you exist.
The bold option makes people squirm because it requires them to believe something different might work. It requires them to defend a choice that stands out. It puts their judgment on the line in a way the safe option doesn't.
I've watched companies choose forgettable creative over and over, then wonder why their marketing isn't working. The creative was working. It was working exactly as designed, delivering safe, expected, ignorable results. That's what you get when you optimize for comfort instead of effectiveness.
Rejecting the safe option requires courage. Not the kind of courage that gets you promoted. The kind that gets you better results.
When the Safe Option Stops Working (And They Finally Notice)
I once worked with an internal client who had very clear ideas about what they wanted. Meaning, they wanted me to be “Photoshop hands”. Execute their vision, don't question it, definitely don't suggest anything strategic.
My manager pushed me to lead with creative strategy anyway. To position design as a creative partner, not just execution. To actually solve problems instead of making their ideas prettier.
This created tension. The client found my strategic input "annoying." They wanted what they wanted. So most of the time, I executed. Sometimes you just make it blue even when you know there's a better way. That's the reality of creative work. Made their safe choices look as good as they could. Delivered exactly what they asked for.
Then one day they came to us frustrated. "Things aren't performing like we want them to. Except for this one email campaign, and we don't know why it's working."
That was the only campaign where they'd actually gone with my visual strategy instead of their own.
The data didn't care about their opinions. It didn't care that my approach made them uncomfortable or that they found strategic pushback annoying. It only cared about what worked. And what worked was the thing they almost didn't approve because it didn't feel safe.
Every other campaign, the ones where I just executed what they wanted, underperformed. The creative was fine. It looked professional. It didn't break any rules. It also didn't break through.
That's the cost of consensus. That's what happens when you optimize for comfort instead of results. You get exactly what you asked for, and then you wonder why it's not working.
What This Actually Means for Your Brand
These uncomfortable moments aren't bugs in the creative process. They're features.
If a creative decision doesn't make someone uncomfortable, it's probably not bold enough to break through. The discomfort is a signal. It tells you you're doing something different. Something that might actually work.
The companies that build strong brands aren't the ones who avoid discomfort. They're the ones who learn to recognize it as progress. They build systems for defending bold work. They get comfortable being uncomfortable.
This is where senior creative direction matters. Not someone who makes prettier designs. Someone who's navigated these exact moments at scale. Someone who knows how to defend strategic creative to skeptical stakeholders. Someone who can build the business case for bold while keeping the work from dying in committee.
I spent years in corporate environments learning how to get good creative through approval processes designed to kill it. How to frame risk in terms executives understand. How to position bold as strategic rather than reckless. How to recognize when discomfort signals opportunity instead of danger.
That's not something you learn in design school. It's something you earn by watching safe creative fail and bold creative win, over and over, until you know the difference.
Quick Answers
How do I know if the discomfort is justified or if the creative is actually off-strategy?
Ask yourself: is the pushback about the creative not serving the strategy, or about the creative making people nervous? If stakeholders can articulate why it doesn't meet business objectives, listen. If they just "feel like it's too much," that's usually a sign you're onto something. Run it past someone with creative and strategic expertise who's not emotionally invested in playing it safe.
What if I choose the bold option and it doesn't work?
You learn something valuable and adjust. If you choose the safe option and it doesn't work, you learn nothing because you never tested what might have broken through. Bold creative that misses still gives you data. Safe creative that fails just confirms you wasted money on something forgettable. One of those outcomes makes you smarter. The other just makes you poorer.
How do I get leadership to approve creative that makes them uncomfortable?
Tie it to business outcomes they care about. Don't defend the creative on aesthetic grounds. Defend it based on what it's designed to accomplish: stand out in a crowded market, reach a specific audience, position for premium pricing. Make the case that safe is actually riskier because it guarantees you blend in. Give them permission to be uncomfortable by showing them why uncomfortable equals effective.
The Takeaway
Every creative decision worth making comes with discomfort. The pitch that makes your stomach drop. The rebrand that doesn't look like what you had before. The brand voice that sounds too opinionated to be professional. The design direction that makes the committee nervous.
That discomfort isn't a warning sign. It's proof you're doing something that might actually work. The only way to build a brand that stands out is to make creative decisions that make people squirm a little. The companies winning in your market aren't the ones playing it safe. They're the ones who learned to recognize strategic discomfort and lean into it.
The question isn't whether your next creative decision will make someone uncomfortable. It's whether you're going to let that discomfort kill it, or whether you're going to recognize it as a signal you're finally onto something worth defending.
If you're wondering where your brand is playing it too safe, start with our Brand Audit Worksheet. It'll help you identify the gaps between where you are and where you need to be, so you can make the uncomfortable creative decisions that actually move the needle.
